Be it a wicked plan to install some serious online censorship in Germany or simply corruption and incompetence, it now looks like the very controversial German Jugendmedienschutzstaatsvertrag (JMStV) may well be signed soon and could become binding law from January 1st, 2011 on. Blogs machen wegen neuen Jugendschutz-Regelungen dicht (www.heise.de)

The legal hoops for a small blog like mine with self produced media content (incl. links and “making available for free download” of my own feature film Vincent, 44 min., 16mm > 35mm blow-up, made in Austria in 1996/2003) seem too complicated, expensive and for sure too risky to take without legal advice, that I now seriously ponder about doing the following:

* move from Berlin/Germany to another EU country where I find political sanity and understanding of new media/online art/blogging etc.

If you happen to be a new media investor, blogger, artist, film maker etc. planning to move to Berlin/Germany (as I did in 1999) because you’ve heard of a vibrant, off-mainstream (online) art/media scene:

* you may want to think twice now and keep a close look at the events unfolding in the days and weeks to come and opt for another location than Berlin/Germany for your investments and business to be

* it may well be that we now only have 31 days left until a de facto censorship law will make it easy for (big media) lawyers to either get rid of your work or to force you into classifying your work with a (from) “18” (years on) label

I do hope that EU commissioner Neelie Kroes (and her staff), who recently held a vibrant speech for a copyright reform (europa.eu) will recognise these established media tactics for what they are: force indie content provider (self made, original works!) to shut down distribution of their e.g. Creative Commons licensed works using laws like the Jugendmedienschutzstaatsvertrag (JMStV) that is really only going to be there to help big media widen it’s existing monopoly-like position.

Not only copyright law needs to be reformed but Europe also needs to protect art and artist from hidden censorship like the German Jugendmedienschutzstaatsvertrag (JMStV).

In other words: even if you are trying very hard to abide to the already very restrictive copyright and “intellectual property” laws (e.g. doing remix works with Public Domain footage like myself) you may still get into expensive legal troubles or have to label your work with only for “18” in order to be on the safe side. I’d rather move to another country. Thank you very much Greens for betraying us (parlamentarische-zwaenge.de)! Yet another reason for only voting Pirate Party in all future elections!!!

Be it a wicked plan to install some serious online censorship in Germany or simply incompetence or corruption, it now looks like the controversial German Jugendmedienschutzstaatsvertrag (JMStV) may well be signed next Thursday and could become binding law from January 1st, 2011.

The legal hoops a small blog like mine with self produced media content (incl. links and making availabel for free download of my own feature film Vincent, 44 min., 16mm > 35mm blow-up, made in 1996/2003) seem to comlicated, expensive and for sure risky to take without legal advice, that I now seriously ponder about doing the following:

* remove my indiworks.wordpress.com blog

* remove indiworks.blip.tv

* remove all my online videos from the Internet Archive (incl. Vincent and His Girl Friday – Beetween the lines edit as well as all my 3D shorts)

* move from Berlin/Germany to another EU country where I find political sanity and understanding of new media/online art/blogging etc.

If you happen to be a new media investor, blooger, artist, film maker etc. planning to move to Berlin/Germany (as I did in 1999) because you’ve heard of a vibrant, off-maistream (online) art/media scene:

* you may want to think twice now and keep a close look at the events unfolding in the days and weeks to come

* it may well be that we now only have 31 days left until a semi-corporate-fascist supported law will make it easy for (big media) lawyers to either get rid of your work or to force you into classifying your work with a (from) “18” (years on) label

In oder words: even if you are trying very hard to abide to the currently already very restrictive copyright and “intelectual property” laws (e.g. doing remix works with Public Domain footage like myself) you may still get into expensive legal troubles or have to label your work with only for “18” to be on the safe side.

Thanks to the generous, yearlong legal efforts of everyone’s much loved RIAA, a secret Dev Team just released the LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE) two weeks after legal inconveniences temporarily sent one of the pioneers of P2P clients on a short holiday in order to get a face lift, blood transfusion and much more:

It is based on LimeWire 5.6 beta and “in many ways, it is better”: “All dependencies on LimeWire LLC’s servers have been removed, all remote settings have been disabled, the Ask toolbar has been unbundled, and all features of LimeWire PRO have been activated for free.” “There’s no adware or spyware: the piratical monkeys are doing this for the benefit of the community.”

TorrentFreak’s verdict so far: “Currently only available for Windows, in our tests LimeWire Pirate Edition functioned perfectly well and is already circulating on BitTorrent.”

While I personally neither use Windows nor have use for this (see here for why) I believe it is a good thing to have yet one more P2P client available for those who need it!

As others have said before: cut off one of the hydra’s heads and two new ones will grow. Now there is not even a company behind this software that the nice gentlemen from the MAFIAA might be able to talk to.

If the MPEG-LA, the patent pool behind H.264 and MPEG-2, has it their way I am an endangered species: “Vincent“, being 44 min. long would not qualify for the MPEG-LA’s “free” offer, latest after 2015 and there is no way that I (or someone else) will be paying protection money to a fucking patent pool for “Vincent”.

My work would simply not be available online any more (thanks to software patents no alternative). Welcome to the age of Corporate Fascism. It’s standing at your and my front door. But you can still act now:

* vote with your browser: since Apple and Microsoft – both H.264 patent holders – are pushing for H.264 as the future web standard for video: simply dump your Apple/MS browsers now and use Firefox, Chrome or Opera. If not: you might be paying for the rest of your life with more ads (yes, H.264 is “free” for the end user…).

* let others know what is at stake here: those people would like to/are about to establish a MONOPOLY ON THE MOVING IMAGE (lock-in via video codec) – a pretty scary systemic change:

This is not only about video codecs, this is about the future of (free) video/moving images distribution (including post production) across a variety of devices and services. And it’s about (corporate) control over media content (via licensing fees, that you need to be able to afford, as e.g. big media always would…).

“Zeitgeist: Addendum” by Peter Joseph is a radical, visionary and thought-provoking documentary that comes with perfect timing (released online on Oct. 2, 2008) to a world (financial) crisis:

it basically explains why we need to change our money based economy if we want to live up to our true potentials.

There are one or two points where the movie seems to shift a bit too far into another direction, but in the end I think it all works out well enough. This movie will have its strong critics, they will say that it’s just propaganda, but it also will have its fans…

I would call “Zeitgeist: Addendum” an anti-propaganda movie – offering the viewer radically different perspectives than those that we get to see everyday in our world (in the mainstream media, at work, in school, etc.). One quote from the beginning sets the tone of what this is about:

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” (Goethe)

Whether you (politically) agree with some of what is being said or not, I think the decision to (not) watch this movie is a real life red pill/blue pill moment…

On the film making side the editing has to be specially mentioned, its sometimes minimal style (only voice over and an (almost) black screen for more than just a short moment) offers room to form your own images and this is quite powerful… All in all it’s a bit like an indie editor’s “J.F.K.”.

Maybe “Zeitgeist: Addendum” could be a bit shorter and some of the changes might come across as too radical for some viewers… While it’s not perfect it attempts to achieve so much and succeeds in so many areas that its shortcomings don’t harm the overall experience and effect I think. The movie is very inspiring. Towards the end there is maybe a bit too much of the techno/spiritual theme and maybe there is just a bit too much of believing in technology at times, but all in all there is so much that works so well (and that makes so much sense) that this can be seen as a good starting point for a discussion…

“Zeitgeist: Addendum” is like “The Matrix” but for real – if you are ready to take this cinematic bluered (just remember which is which…!;-) pill…